Technology Policy Institute Blog

Archive for July, 2012

This morning’s Wall Street Journal reported on the pending IPO of the travel website Kayak, which has been doing quite well. Kayak’s revenue increased 39%, to $73 million, during the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same period a year earlier. Over that period net income increased to $4 million from a loss of $7 million.

The Kayak IPO follows on the heels of a successful Yelp IPO in March. The review site also has been prospering. Just last week, the Journal reported that Apple was planning to incorporate Yelp into its new mapping application.

The Yelp IPO was preceded by the spinoff of travel site TravelAdvisor from Expedia last December. Since that time, TravelAdvisor’s share price has increased by two-thirds.

What do all these companies have in common, in addition to the fact that they’ve been succeeding? They have all been complaining to the Congress and the FTC about Google’s supposedly anticompetitive practices.

Now it’s possible that they could be doing well in spite of anticompetitive behavior on the part of Google. It’s also possible that they could have done poorly despite lack of anticompetitive behavior. But the fact is, the companies have been succeeding, even in these tough economic times. Perhaps they’re the ones who, by lobbying the government, are competing unfairly.